Town Square

Project labor agreements are bad business

Original post made
by Tim Hunt, Castlewood,
on Oct 30, 2012

As you prepare to vote next week or fill in your vote-by-mail ballot, you should be aware of the implications of project labor agreements.
These union-backed and driven agreements basically guarantee trade union members government or private work. If a private company decides to make a deal to use union labor exclusively, so be it. That's their call.
When it comes to government and your tax dollars and mineit's different. For decades, since the passage of the Davis-Bacon Act during the Depression, federal projects have required paying prevailing wages (that simply translates to union scale). That adds substantially to the costs of projects particularly now that the vast majority of the construction work force is non-union.
Over the years, merit (non-union) contractors have learned how to bid for prevailing wage jobs effectively. They can do so because they are not bound by union work rules that are generally designed to ensure as many jobs (thus as much dues income) as possible. Employees receive the higher union wages, but the costs for non-union contractors are still less. For ample, a plumbing job involving an 8-person crew averages $100.87 with union work rules and $77.06 for the merit shop when paying union scale.
The unions have responded to this challenge by turning to the politiciansvirtually all Democratsto seek project labor agreements on jobs.
Numerous studies have demonstrated that these agreements raise costs by 10 to 15 percent.
On federal jobs, the Bush Administration allowed open competition and disallowed any labor agreements. Early on, the Obama Administration reversed that and requires labor agreementsone could argue in a direct payback for the union support.
What that means is not only higher costs borne by all taxpayers, but the non-union 85 percent of the construction work force is eliminated from bidding or doing jobs they are paying for with their taxes.
Let's bring this down to Alameda County, a traditional union stronghold. Let's start with the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a multi-billion project that has a labor agreement. So do the BART extensions to the Oakland Airport and Eastern Contra Costa Countythe airport line alone is more than $500 million.
It also covers the Chabot-Las Positas Community College District and all of the new facilities at Las Positas and the refurbishment of the Chabot campus.
The Alameda County Board of Supervisors already has determined that the East County Courthouse, to be built next to Santa Rita county jail, will be constructed by union labor. Given the sorry state of both state and county finances, it is irresponsible to lock out 85 percent of the work force and then raise the costs 10 to 15 percent to take care of their union bosses.
What's interesting is to witness school districts cry poor and then mandate these agreements for construction. Seven other Alameda County school districts require these agreements as does the city of Berkeley. On the docket for potential agreements is all work in Alameda County of more than $1 million as well as all work in Hayward, for the Oakland Housing Authority and for any work on conversion of the Oakland Army Base of more than $1 million.
Who sits in the White House will determine if these agreements are used on jobs with federal funding, but it's the local agencies that are paying off unions at the expense of taxpayers in the local areas.
These also are worth considering as you weigh your vote on Measure B1 to double the sales tax for transportation in Alameda County to 1 cent and make it permanent. The county commission, conveniently, has not determined its policy on project labor agreements, but given the political makeup of the majority of the county it's not a difficult guess when it comes up.
These political payoffs are no different that compulsory union dues that are collected from employees and then used to invest in Democrat candidates for office.

Posted by John Hatch
a resident of another community
on Oct 31, 2012 at 12:12 pm

Yes I live in San Jose, but as member of laborers 270 I work all over the bay area, and it is likely that i will work on the one or more of the project that Tim mentioned. A lot of what he says is factually correct. Labor uses it's influence to ensure that large projects, especially public works project go to union workers. This definitely drives up project costs. Is this fair? look at the benefits. In area that have strong unions, ALL wages, union and nonunion are higher. Areas with strong unions have a Lower discrepency between the rich and the poor, (more middle class).Unions level the playing field, creating a means for the common working man to bargain for the value of his work. Most areas with strong unions have an overall higher standard of living for everyone. My union maintains a training facility nearby in San Ramon. The simple fact that union laborers are better trained and more experienced means that our projects are built to higher standard of excellence. I build bridges for a living. Do you want inexperienced workers doing that? Like many Union Laborers I 'graduated' to union work as I gained experience over the years. I have earned the right to support a family and have a home here in the bay area. UNion workers a Local workers and wages paid to us go es back into the local economy, not disappearing into the pockets of nonunion out-of-state contractors and their imported workers.

Posted by sknywench
a resident of Amador Valley High School
on Oct 31, 2012 at 10:04 pmsknywench is a registered user.

I agree with Mr. Hunt. I totally disagree with the previous two commentors. I apologize if I am incorrect, but I believe at least one of the preceding commentators is a well known member of the local fire fighters union (?). I think its relevant and appropriate that a commentator would make that known if they state non union work is essentially inferior due to a lack of membership.
Firstly, the degree of regulations, including regular compliance inspectors at the State, Federal and local levels make it impossible to say correctly that union workmanship is superior to non-union workmanship. Union membership does NOT prevent faulty work nor keep a construction defect lawsuit away. It just means there will be more money or juice to defend a union member because the union extracts money from its membership for such things as well as high power attorneys to negotiate their ever increasing lucrative compensation packages.
I used to think it was wonderful that we live in a Country where we have the freedom of choices. But I see unions now as the biggest special interest group with powerful lobbyists that will eliminate competition and we will all be paying for exploding public sector and union benefits. In the interest of disclosure, I am a Democrat and a former Calpers (public sector) employee. Needless to say, Im voting YES on 32. What's next. . . requiring my private sector employer to automatically deduct money from my paycheck for the church I attend.

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